Leading remote teams in times of crisis

Proposal prepared for: Acme Corp.April 2020

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Request

You have requested Developing Talent for support to equip a group of 150 senior leaders (VP level) with skills to lead their teams remotely. Managing virtual teams was already a reality before the Covid crisis, but in the middle of the global crisis it has become an essential skill as practically all the work is done remotely by necessity.

In addition, leaders are facing the complexity of being isolated themselves, often being forced to work from home with multiple distractions, such as threats to their own health and that of loved ones, children that require homeschooling or spouses/partners facing uncertainty in their career. The world has suddenly become more VUCA than ever and this requires exceptional resilience, flexibility and other leadership qualities.

You have identified the following areas of focus for your leaders to develop their skills:

■ Leading virtual teams, considering that many employees work from home

■ Building psychological safety within teams; a climate where team members can share anxiety and peer support exists

■ A focus on self-management; this is the cornerstone of effective leadership. When a leader is in good shape, mentally and physically, (s)he is more available for her/his team and better able to get the job done

You aim to offer this development programme on a voluntary basis.

On remote Leadership

What does it take to create high performance in a team whose members are located across the globe?

Our research shows that the remote leader needs a different skillset than the leader operating in one location. The competencies of the remote leader include:

1. Selecting the right technology for the task and using it smartly

2. Facilitating engaging and interactive virtual meetings

3. Building & mending relationships over distance

4. Creating trust and defusing destructive conflict

5. Managing performance remotely

6. Cross-cultural skills

An important aspect of remote leadership is the ‘magnifying principle’: leadership skills are magnified, compared to collocated leadership. Moderately effective leaders become bad leaders when working remotely and good leaders become excellent leaders.

An added layer of complexity is that more often than not virtual team members are members of multiple teams. By default, their primary loyalty tends to be with the ‘home team’ that is geographically closest.

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What we propose

Design phaseTo define in detail the learning needs of the target audience. This includes:

■ A draft of the sessions’ contents for you to provide feedback

■ Designing of the materials based on your input

■ Your final approval

Delivery phaseA programme run in a virtual classroom consisting of:

■ A short intake survey to each participant

■ 1 kick-off session

■ A core programme of 3 live online sessions of 2 hours each

■ A menu of 4 optional sessions of 2 hours each

■ Peer coaching groups

■ Executive coaching sessions to deepen the learnings from the modules and address individual concerns

OutcomesUpon completion of this programme, participants will:

■ Be familiar with key aspects of leading remotely

■ Have a higher level of self-awareness as remote leaders

■ Have improved skills in developing trustful relationships across distance and through technology

■ Be better able to manage themselves and their teams in a period of crisis

■ Know what it takes to manage and coach team members who are forced to work from home, sometimes in difficult circumstances

■ See remote leadership as a positive and effective way of getting the job done

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Programme overview

CORE SKILLS

OPTIONAL MODULES

KICK OFF SESSIONLeading

remote teams, Why and How

1 hr

ACME Leadership

ACME HR

DT Max 30 p

MODULE C1

Virtual meetings 101

2 hr Max 12 p

MODULE O4

Coaching my team members remotely

2 hr Max 12 p

MODULE P1

Facilitated peer coaching groups

90 min Max 5-6 p

MODULE P2

Executive coaching

Max 5-6 p

MODULE C2

Self-management & resilience

2 hr Max 12 p

MODULE O5

Cross cultural dynamics in remote teams

2 hr Max 12 p

MODULE C3

Trust & psychological safety

2 hr Max 12 p

MODULE O6

Organizing self at home

2 hr Max 12 p

MODULE O7

Difficult conversations over distance

2 hr Max 12 p

Sessions will take place either on Zoom or in WebEx Training Center. Modules can be repeated as needed.

Executive coaching session

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Overview of each module

KICK OFF SESSION - Leading remote teams

SESSION OBJECTIVES

The purpose of the kick-off is for participants to:

Know the business imperative for this training (Why and why now?)

Be familiar with the virtual classroom environment

Identify their personal learning needs when it comes to leading remote teams

Select the modules and coaching package that fits their individual development needs

CONTENT & ACTIVITIES

Why this training, in this period of crisis? Introduction by one of your top executives

Quick tour of the virtual classroom: what you need to know as a participant to engage actively

Overview of modules: core, optional modules and executive coaching

Logistics: how do I enrol and prepare for sessions?

Being a learner in the programme: confidentiality, virtual etiquette, roles, responsibilities and expectations

Setting up of peer learning groups

MODULE C1 (core) Virtual meetings 101

SESSION OBJECTIVES

After this module, participants will:

Be familiar with best practices in virtual communication and the use of virtual technology

Be able to build their own virtual etiquette

Know how to match the right technology with the task at hand

Communicate more effectively in a virtual environment

CONTENT & ACTIVITIES

Selecting the right technology for the task

Preparing for a smooth meeting – hassle free technology

Facilitating engaging and productive meetings

Creating an etiquette for your own remote team

Dealing with the challenges of team members working from home

Making meetings more spontaneous, interactive and fun

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MODULE C2 (core) Self-management & resilience

SESSION OBJECTIVES

After this module, participants will:

Know how stress can affect the body and mind

Be able to identify their own stress levels better than before

Be able to regulate stress levels better than before

Be better able to identify stress signals from remote team members and address those

Know how to build resilience in them and team members

CONTENT & ACTIVITIES

Self management as the foundation for effective leadership

Stress management

Self-regulation circle (exercise)

Be your own support system: exercise in resilience

Developing resilience for the long term

Peer group activity (small groups)

Action planning

MODULE C3 (core) Trust & psychological safety

SESSION OBJECTIVES

After this module, participants will:

Have a clear picture of how they build trust remotely and where they can do more

Be familiar with the concept of psychological safety and how to build it in a remote team

Define an action plan to increase the trust level in their remote team

CONTENT & ACTIVITIES

Key elements of Psychological safety: trust, compassion and support

Exercise: increasing psychological safety in a team

Survey on psychological safety (optional – with coaching session)

Peer consultation in breakout groups

Building psychological safety – checklist & action planning

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MODULE O4 (option) Coaching my team members remotely

SESSION OBJECTIVES

After this module, participants will:

Be aware that coaching remotely can be just as effectively as F2F

Know how to leverage communication technology for an effective coaching process

Be able to coach effectively online

Be able to positively influence coachees performance and development over distance

CONTENT & ACTIVITIES

Coaching as a tool to motivate and develop remote team members

GROW or ACS model for coaching

Coaching practice in small groups (breakouts)

MODULE O5 (option) Cross cultural dynamics in remote teams

SESSION OBJECTIVES

After this module, participants will:

Be familiar with key dimensions of cross cultural communication that play a role in remote working (hierarchy, communication style, dealing with time, task vs relationship)

Be aware of the impact of their e-mail style on recipients from other cultural backgrounds

Define one action to better leverage the cultural differences for their team

CONTENT & ACTIVITIES

Key cross cultural dimensions: hierarchy, communication style, dealing with time, task vs relationship

Levels of directness in e-mails – exercise and feedback

Action planning

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MODULE O6 (option) Organizing self at home

SESSION OBJECTIVES

After this module, participants will:

Know how to set up their home working arrangement in an optimal way

Be able to better balance work and private commitments

Understand the importance of self-reflection and allocate time to do this

Know what they need to keep mentally fit

Be able to coach team members in improving their homeworking arrangement

CONTENT & ACTIVITIES

Practical tips on working from home

Self-care in a situation of confinement

Quick ways to reduce tension & stress

Managing impulse and creating more options to respond

What do my remote team members need from me as their leader?

Peer exchange of best practices

Action planning

MODULE O7 (option) Difficult conversations over distance

SESSION OBJECTIVES

After this module, participants will:

Be able to give and receive feedback remotely in a constructive way

Have the courage to address performance issues and other difficult topics

CONTENT & ACTIVITIES

What is managerial courage?

A model to address difficult conversations

The ‘magnifying principle’: everything looks bigger in virtual space

Difference between feedback in a F2F setting and virtual space

Feedback practice in small groups

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MODULE P1 and P2 (option)

PEER COACHING, FACILITATED AND UNFACILITATED

Peer coaching is a powerful tool, where a group of 3-5 leaders who do not work together in day to day business bring in their challenges and coach each other. Typical benefits are:

A safe space where people quickly open us to share challenges, doubts and questions

Seeing new perspectives by getting input from peers who are in similar situations

Honest feedback, both positive and constructive

Peer support which encourages leaders to approach things differently, experiment and learn from experience

Peer coaching is a structured process, to distinguish it from normal ‘coffee talk’. An external coach helps the group to learn and experience this process. After approx. 2-3 sessions, a peer coaching group should be able to continue without external coach

Peer coaching sessions last 90 minutes and can be set up on your internal meeting tool.

EXECUTIVE COACHING

Participants have the option to engage with a coach during this journey. These coaches are all specialists in working remotely and offer the opportunity to your leaders to:

Work on their key leadership challenges during this period of forced distance, with team members working from home as well as from other geographies

Apply the learnings from the training modules to their specific challenges, find solutions and move forward on them

Identify their strengths and development areas as remote leaders and make progress on what they identify as a priority

We recommend between 2 and 4 coaching sessions for those who wish to engage in coaching.

Coaching sessions last for 1 hour each and can be set up on a simple meeting platform or take place over the phone.

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Investment

Item and Description QuantityUnit Cost

in CHFTotal in CHF

Project Setup and managementScheduling done by your company

Offered

Discovery and design phase (one time cost)Finalizing modules based on your input and creating materials, new modules and event pages

2 days 2,700 5,400

Delivery phaseKick off session - 1 hr

Includes:

Dedicated and protected website for each group with programme info, prework and session recordings

Pre-programme survey

Use of our Webex Training Center or Zoom platforms for the session + 15 minutes pre and post session

Delivery team of 1 senior trainer + 1 producer (technical assistant)

Call in costs via VOIP, international phone connections - (telephone costs are charged at local tariff)

3 ? 1,900 ?Depends on

global number of participants in various time

zones

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Training modules (core and optional) - 2 hr

Up to 12 participants

Includes:

Dedicated and protected website for each group with programme info, prework and session recordings

Pre-programme survey

Use of our Webex Training Center or Zoom platforms for the session + 15 minutes pre and post session

Delivery team of 1 senior trainer + 1 producer (technical assistant)

Call in costs via VOIP, international phone connections - (telephone costs are charged at local tariff)

Level 1 (Kirkpatrick) evaluation

? 2,600 ?Depends on

global number of participants in various time

zones

Facilitation of peer coaching sessions

Groups of up to 5 participants, 90 minutes

1 senior coach

Use of your meeting platform

Executive Coaching sessions

Your standard rates

1 hour coaching sessions

Optional itemsTech Checks

Because of rigorous standards on audio quality (aiming to avoid to start a meeting with audio and connectivity issues – creating a bad working environment) we recommend a one on one tech check for each participant.

75 - per participant

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About DevelopingTalent

DevelopingTalent has been working with large multinationals since 2011. We are a boutique Leadership Development firm delivering high level Executive Coaching, Team Coaching and customized Leadership Development services through our roster of more than 100 highly experienced associates worldwide.

Founded by two entrepreneurs and Executive Coaches, Jean-Stéphane Szijarto and Bettina Court, DevelopingTalent has been working closely with multinationals like Nestlé, Nespresso, UBS, SITA, Novartis, Merck Serono, Nexans, private banks etc.

YOUR POINT OF CONTACT

Jean-Stéphane Szijarto, Managing Director

0041 79 212 02 04

jss@developingtalent.ch

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